In which bin should you throw Christmas gift wrap?

Christmas has passed and you find yourself at the head of a mountain of waste that you don’t know what to do with. Find out which bin to put the gift wrappers in.

We are always a little lost in front of the sorting bins when we are dealing with packaging that we are not used to. For Christmas, where to throw the gift wrap ? And the toy packaging ? And how can we throw away less?

The right sorting gesture for gift wrap

It’s not that simple: it all depends on what material your paper gift is done, and if your municipality has adopted general sorting of packaging.

Gift wrap, in the packaging bin or not?

If your paper gift is… made of paper, no problem, you can throw it in the sorting bin. For it to be properly recycled, the ideal, according to Citeo, the packaging eco-organization, is not to crease or tear it.

If your gift wrap contains shiny elementsor that it is made of metallized material, this depends on the sorting rules of your municipality. If it has adopted the extension of sorting instructions, this packaging can be thrown into the trash bin for packaging. Otherwise, head to the general trash. To find out, you can use the Guide you Tri by Citheus(1).

THE paper ribbonsthe most common, can be recycled; THE metallic ribbons or fabric put in the general trash. Better still, you can keep them to reuse them from one year to the next.

According to Citeo, 20,000 tonnes of gift wrap are used each year during the Christmas period. We can take the right actions to reduce our environmental impact. We avoid metallic wrapping papervery intensive in natural resources during manufacturing and difficult to recycle. We rather choose paper gift and paperpreferably from sustainably managed forests (FSC or PEFC) or made from recycled paper (watch for eco-labels).

Better yet, we choose beautiful images from papier journal or magazines to wrap our gifts. You can also opt for reusable gift bags, or furoshiki, fabric gift wrap.

The packaging doesn’t matter, as long as there is an eco-responsible gift

On the side of gift wrappingtoy boxes and cardboard packages can be recycled. It is best to remove the small plastic ties on the cardboard toy boxesand separate the plastic windows. You can fold larger boxes to save space; everything goes into the sorting bin.

Preferably choose sober gift wrap, without shiny elements ©Chamomile_Olya

The polystyrene is also sorted, except for the largest items, which package televisions for example, which are deposited in recycling centers.

But it is important to know a few orders of magnitude: according to Ademe(2)during the Christmas period, waste represent only 1% of the total carbon impact, while gifts emit 57% of greenhouse gases.

So focus instead on the gifts you will give, rather than on thepackaging ; avoid jewelry and high-tech, which are particularly polluting. Instead, choose intangible, repackaged or homemade gifts!

Banner illustration: In which bin should you throw gift wrapping? ©Andrey_Popov